Review: 40590 Houses of the World 2
Posted by Huw,
LEGO's relentless bombardment of gifts with purchase continues next month when 40590 Houses of the World 2, the second in a series of four matching sets, will be free with qualifying purchases from the 1st April until the 9th.
However, we're not sure whether the spend threshold will be $200/€200/£180 or $250/€250/£220 as we've received conflicting information from two sources.
This one takes inspiration from the Moorish architecture of southern Spain and North Africa.
Summary
40590 Houses of the World 2, 270 pieces.
Buy at LEGO.com »
A great addition to the interesting series of microscale buildings
- Attractively detailed inside and out
- High spend threshold to acquire
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
As it can be useful to see how much stuff you're getting for free here's a picture showing the unopened bags:
A small sticker sheet is provided, featuring attractive Moorish decorations for the exterior walls, tiles, table, and rug.
As with the first in the series, 40583 Houses of the World 1, the building stands on a plot of land that's 10 studs deep by 12 wide with a pavement at the front and alleyway at the side. It's two storeys high and features a small balcony above a white arch supported by decorative pillars.
A pot and cup of tea stand on a table by the front door, which is surrounded by a distinctive horseshoe arch typical of the region.
The fronds of the palm tree add a welcome splash of colour, as do the vines growing up the side of the building.
Not only is the exterior pleasantly detailed, the inside is as well.
In the ground floor room there's a piano in the corner, a dark red sideboard, and a table and chairs. The table has a lovely marquetry design sticker on top of it.
Upstairs there's a very cleverly constructed bed, a corner sofa, a pot plant and rug.
Plants are growing on the roof and a washing line, complete with garments drying in the sun, hangs at the back.
Overall it's another very attractive building in the series which looks great standing next to the first one, although I'm struggling to think of somewhere you'd see the two architectural styles side-by-side in real life!
It'll be available from 1st April at LEGO.com with qualifying purchases. I am pleasantly surprised by the variety of GWPs that have been available so far this year: there's something for everyone.
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43 comments on this article
The $250 USD price point is the correct pricing, unfortunately
With the high pricepoints on these gifts and the rather lackluster end product i'm glad I didn't even bother collecting them. These are not worthy of being the most expensive GWPs that LEGO offers (baring the "with this specific set" ones)
For $250, those should all be printed pieces.
With a threshold like that, I hope they show up as VIP gifts eventually. I like this one and would be willing to pay some for it, or forgo a discount on other stuff, but $250 is crazy. I don't have any wants that high right now, but with a little 2xVIP I'll pick up enough to grab that.
Also, is that the one ring?
@dimc said:
"Also, is that the one ring?"
It is!
£220 for stickers!!!! Disappointing indeed.
Seeing the 2 very different houses together somehow reminds me of the transitions between Frontierland and Adventureland at Disneyland Paris !
What happened to the seventh ‘1’ sticker?
I'd be happy to spent some money on this, or spent the required amount to get for free it at some point, but not right now.
@mrzeon said:
"What happened to the seventh ‘1’ sticker?"
It was on the side of a brick that had been orientated incorrectly but isn't any more :)
It looks really nice, but the spend threshold does seem high. Normally, GWPs come in at about 10% of the spend, based on my own valuation, but this one I only value at £15 which is well short.
It's nice, but not gonna happen for me at that price point.
They could've print at least the '1' sticker as there are so many of it in the set and it is generic enough to use in many other sets...
Another pass for me. Now that I think of it, so many GWPs in the first quarter of 2023 and I haven't pursued a single one. The high thresholds are definitely pushing me off and the few GWPs with lower thresholds are not interesting enough. If the trend continues my Lego spending this year might finally go down for the first time since I came out of my dark age in 2015. My wallet is happy.
I do really like the attention to detail at this scale - that bed, for instance, is lovely. Then again on the other side of the of wall that is one GINORMOUS lantern, and it's not so much a teapot as it is a cauldron next to a bucket of tea.
But if we're going to pick those scaling-nits, I suppose the dog next door was never a Chihuahua, rather a lost and confused St. Bernard or maybe a small bear.
The first Minecraft Desert Village set since 2020 : 21160 : The Illager Raid
Oh wait, it's not minecraft :)
Still, as for the set itself, it looks quite nice at the scale it's at, just not something for me.
"Upstairs there's a very cleverly constructed bed, a corner sofa, a pot plant and rug."
Who knew that pot is legal in the world of Lego. Perhaps the homeowner is growing it for medicinal use ;-)
Quite lovely. These Houses of the World reviews are like impeccably produced, exciting trailers for films.
I watch these trailers with great enthusiasm but know deep down I’ll never see the movie. :D
Just like the first one it's a nice little set, and if it would have been regularly available at a realistic price, I might even have been tempted to buy it. I just like the idea of such small houses from all around the world. But as a GWP with such a high threshold this (again) is rather disappointing. Especially compared to other recent GWPs this is pretty bad.
Also, the idea of such small houses isn't exactly unique, I have a dozen or so quite similar sets from Loz, with either a Chinese or Japanese style. Much more detailed though, with easily triple the piece count (not even including the ridiculous number of spare parts....) for a 8x10 stud, 2 floor building. And priced at around €10, including tax and shipping.
The price/threshold isn't even my biggest gripe with this set. Lego is expensive, that's nothing new. But that should be reflected in the set design, it should be better than what competitors have to offer. And that's clearly not the case here.
I hope that the lack of positive response - due entirely to an outrageous threshold - does not dissuade LEGO from doing more sets like this. In fact, I would LOVE to support culturally diverse initiatives like this (especially at minifig scale) if priced appropriately.
What a complete mess, two separate source at TLG are stating two different spend thresholds!
it’s aite
Lego says not to worry, soon you won't be able to buy a set for less than $250. Problem solved! I mean, at the end of the day these are plastic bricks. Lego is pricing its fans out for who, investment resellers?
40587 will run till 09-04 so you might get 2 GWP, but there is a limit to the amount of jazz clubs and indy sets lego fans can buy
@Huw any word of the release time of the 40606?
Start of April's not a great time for Lego purchases bills wise, so I rather hope this gets re-offered later, as the 1st house was.
But as the 1st one was part of a 3 gwp deal, it will depend on the full offer (not that I really want another Easter Basket!).
@Huw said:
"..free with qualifying purchases"
Not free. Nothing is. That’s not just a semantic nitpick either.
@gsmayes said:
"Lego says not to worry, soon you won't be able to buy a set for less than $250. Problem solved! I mean, at the end of the day these are plastic bricks. Lego is pricing its fans out for who, investment resellers?"
If that means they move away from the housing market we should praise the Lego company?
This set is inspired by the Moops. So it's a must have purchase for that excentric architect, Art Vandelay!
These Houses of the World are easy passes, what with the price threshold, and the appearance of the actual sets.
@Zander said:
" @Huw said:
"..free with qualifying purchases"
Not free. Nothing is. That’s not just a semantic nitpick either.
"
How is it not free? If you spend 250$ now in lego shop you will get your lego and vip points. If you wait until April first and spend the same 250$ you will get your lego, vip points and this little set. Without any additional cost, so in other words free of charge.
I’m a bit of a GWP collector, but the increase in qualifying price points have made planning my Lego purchases a tactical event!!
@thor96 said:
" @Zander said:
" @Huw said:
"..free with qualifying purchases"
Not free. Nothing is. That’s not just a semantic nitpick either.
"
How is it not free? If you spend 250$ now in lego shop you will get your lego and vip points. If you wait until April first and spend the same 250$ you will get your lego, vip points and this little set. Without any additional cost, so in other words free of charge."
Rudimentary economics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
@dimc said:
"Also, is that the one ring?"
No. Sonic clearly left one behind.
@LegoBoi69 said:
"I'm for a penny in for a pound. I've got several of the first house, so guess I'll be getting a few of these too . "
Wow. You must have got
a) quite a LEGO budget and
b) enough high price sets on your to-get list.
I might have a) but definitely not b), so any of the current GWPs are out of the question for me. In any case I find none of them attractive enough to entice me to part with that much money anyway, so no hard feelings.
At least this house to me looks better than the first one in the series.
The last GWP I actually decided to pay for to get was the Blacktron retro ship. And at the time that purchase also netted me two more free sets, so win-win situation in my book.
This one is quite lovely. I’m glad I started collecting these. An easy “Buy” :D
I will never uderstand why people complain. This is a free gift. You want it, buy it now or online later or just build it with own bricks.
You dont have to get it you know.
And it is an opened back set.
@Zander said:
" @thor96 said:
" @Zander said:
" @Huw said:
"..free with qualifying purchases"
Not free. Nothing is. That’s not just a semantic nitpick either.
"
How is it not free? If you spend 250$ now in lego shop you will get your lego and vip points. If you wait until April first and spend the same 250$ you will get your lego, vip points and this little set. Without any additional cost, so in other words free of charge."
Rudimentary economics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
"
I was sure you were going to answer like that. This makes sense from producers perspective. But it absolutely makes no sense from buyer perspective. Especially about a thing that one buys for fun and not out of necessity. Getting more for the same amount of money in specific time frame is economically a free bonus. Even though this bonus has a value and cost. But you, as a buyer, did not 'sacrifice' anything to get this bonus.
I understand the threshold now for the botanical gwp, having seen this one.
It's not just affordability, it's timing. Having to spend on a set you're saving for because you want the gwp, when you would buy the set later in the year, because you need to save for it.
Didn't get the first one, though I liked it. I like this one too. Another trip to eBay methinks. Still trying to shift the gwp ambulance I did qualify for and I've yet to get the one I did want, the removal van. Timing and affordability, again.
@thor96 said:
" @Zander said:
" @thor96 said:
" @Zander said:
" @Huw said:
"..free with qualifying purchases"
Not free. Nothing is. That’s not just a semantic nitpick either.
"
How is it not free? If you spend 250$ now in lego shop you will get your lego and vip points. If you wait until April first and spend the same 250$ you will get your lego, vip points and this little set. Without any additional cost, so in other words free of charge."
Rudimentary economics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
"
I was sure you were going to answer like that. This makes sense from producers perspective. But it absolutely makes no sense from buyer perspective. Especially about a thing that one buys for fun and not out of necessity. Getting more for the same amount of money in specific time frame is economically a free bonus. Even though this bonus has a value and cost. But you, as a buyer, did not 'sacrifice' anything to get this bonus."
The economic principle of ‘no free lunch’ is universal. It does not end just because the buyer is a consumer. When LEGO offers a so-called ‘gift with purchase’, you are still paying for the ‘gift’, just indirectly. The price is built into the LEGO you think you are paying for.
I like these. If the threshold was $150, I'd do it. But, these simply aren't worth $250- especially with the never-ending Lego price increases.
Here in Czech Republic, the threshold is equivalent of €280, not €250 :-((
I've been watching for this GWP on the LEGO website since this article posted and haven't seen it yet. Did I somehow miss it, or does anyone know if it got delayed or anything? I'm in USA.