Random set of the day: Amazon Ancient Ruins
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 5986 Amazon Ancient Ruins, released during 1999. It's one of 14 Adventurers sets produced that year. It contains 458 pieces and 8 minifigs, and its retail price was US$80, which equates to about US$152 in today's money.
It's owned by 1,250 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at Brick Owl, BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $1,200.00, or eBay.
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LORE TIME!
The Amazon Ancient Ruins is the secret jungle temple where Chief Achu the Keeper guards the Sun Disc. The heroic adventurers merely wish to photograph and study the Sun Disc, while the villainous Senor Palomar has been hired by the greedy art collector Mr. Hates (AKA Baron Samuel von Barron, AKA Evil Eye, AKA Lord Sam Sinister, AKA...) to retrieve the Sun Disc for his private collection. In LEGO Mania Magazine and Adventures! Magazine comics, both parties repeatedly fail to get the Sun Disc thanks to Achu's magic and booby traps. To this day, it remains the one MacGuffin in Adventurers that Johnny Thunder was never able to successfully recover...
In video games, the Amazon Ancient Ruins appears as scenery in the Amazon Adventure Alley track in LEGO Racers. However, replicas of the jungle fortress can be found in other parts of the LEGO world, including a pair of temples on Dino Island in LEGO Racers 2; a temple on Adventurers' Island in the Bi-Plane subgame in LEGO Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge; and the Inca Temple attraction in LEGOLAND. With Achu's magic, the TumTum Tribe's influence stretches far and wide...
@SJPlego said:
"the TumTum Tribe's influence stretches far and wide..."
Triple T?
What a beautiful baseplate.
@SJPlego said:
"LORE TIME!
The Amazon Ancient Ruins is the secret jungle temple where Chief Achu..."
Gesundheit.
I know I at least used to have this, but I'm not sure if I still do; it might have been in my storage room when I procrastinated on paying the bill for too long. I do remember that when I bought it, the top flap had been torn off. All the parts were still in the box, though.
Easily amongst the best sets of all time. Looks amazing and is a perfect play set.
I was reminded of this set earlier today when I saw a cool MOC of an ancient Sith Lord (those May the Fourth celebrations started early this year) that used the Sun Disc part as the center of an ornate piece of golden chest armor. Hard to describe, but very cool, large-scale character build. The builder is Brickal_tx on Instagram. Amazing coincidence seeing that set with the Sun Disc tonight!
So glad I have this set! I am very close to completing a second one. Maybe I'll actually get the baseplate for it sometime.
It's a lot of fun. Some great little traps.
Bring back cool baseplates! I had so much fun as a kid building on a river/mountain baseplate I had. It's a great starting point for kids to get creative and build in a way where they can express themselves.
I like the idea but execution with parts avalable then looks crude.
Feels like this has gone up in value in recent years? I don't recall it being in the $1,000+ territory previously.
I wish we’d get a new Adventurers theme, or at least some homage sets like Pirates and Castle do. I know that Johnny, Pippin, and Kilroy have all shown up here and there all subtle-like, but I want a set. Fingers crossed that Ideas can maybe deliver for us.
I wish we’d get a new Adventurers theme, or at least some homage sets like Pirates and Castle do. I know that Johnny, Pippin, and Kilroy have all shown up here and there all subtle-like, but I want a set. Fingers crossed that Ideas can maybe deliver for us.
I just ran through the instructions, and my favorite detail is that the engine on the car is composed of trans-neon orange headlight bricks with grills and the other parts obscuring them to make it look like it's overheating.
I collected most of the Egyptian wave of Adventurers when they came up but not much of the Amazonian ones. I think the bright primary colours used for most of the ruins just seems a bit gaudy and childish but these are still pretty good looking builds with some fun traps!
@WokePope said:
"Feels like this has gone up in value in recent years? I don't recall it being in the $1,000+ territory previously."
Maybe to many people watched trikbrix on YT and the Amazonian sets had a more limited release.
Only sets I ever saw here was 1271 and 5906
@WokePope said:
"Feels like this has gone up in value in recent years? I don't recall it being in the $1,000+ territory previously."
Unfortunately, most vintage sets have gone way up in value as of late. Really sucks too because that's all I collect. I still need this set to complete my Adventurers Jungle collection which makes the current pricing a real bummer for me.
I'm fairly sure I remember learning when I was first discovering the world of Lego fan websites that this and 5976 didn't get released in Europe; I recall that the Lego Collector book also had them marked as such, and they for sure didn't show up in the main 1999 UK catalogue that I had at the time (https://images.brickset.com/library/view/?f=catalogues/c99uk2&p=15).
This was a bit of a disappointment for me as a kid, since back in 1999 I'd had hopes of collecting the entire Jungle wave (because I discovered Lego themes through the Lego Adventures magazine, I learned of Adventurers Jungle through its comic in issue 3, before the Egypt wave was featured in issue 6, so Jungle was my entry into the theme), a goal that I was convinced that I was pretty close to achieving, as I had 5906, 5956, 5936, and 5901. To suddenly learn three or so years later that the theme had two more big sets that I'd never seen before and didn't have a hope of getting hold of was a... *fun* little discovery.
In hindsight, I'm not convinced this is the best of the big Adventurers sets. It's got some cool features and an impressive presence, for sure; but it seems clear to me that the baseplate is doing most of the heavy lifting (literally and metaphorically) in this set, and the actual temple isn't much more than a bit bigger version of the one in Spider's Secret. It still looks very neat, don't get me wrong, and if the current price wasn't so extremely silly I'd love to get the chance to add it to my collection someday; but I don't feel like I missed out that much from never owning it as a child, after all.
Such a great looking set!
I’m have this one, still sealed…
Might be time to build it!
@Boettner_Builds said:
"I’m have this one, still sealed…
Might be time to build it!"
Most expensive tape-cutting of your life
1 of 3 Lego sets to have Amazon in the name. The only one of three I do not own. I somehow have most of the other jungle sets at this point. Would be cool to own this, but I doubt I would ever pay going prices. Cool baseplate as well.
@ThatBionicleGuy said:
"In hindsight, I'm not convinced this is the best of the big Adventurers sets. It's got some cool features and an impressive presence, for sure; but it seems clear to me that the baseplate is doing most of the heavy lifting (literally and metaphorically) in this set, and the actual temple isn't much more than a bit bigger version of the one in Spider's Secret."
In addition to this one, I had 5978, 5988, 7417, and 7418, and 5978 is still probably my favorite Adventurers set of all time, except maybe for 7417, because of the cool biplane.