Review: Bricktober 2020 Swing Ride
Posted by Huw,
You might recall that in October I reviewed one of last year's Bricktober sets that were gifts with purchase in Asian branches of Toys R Us, then showed all four lined up a few weeks ago.
I've now received this year's set of four, which feature microscale fairground rides, from a BrickLink seller in Thailand, so in between reviews of 2021 sets I'll post quick appraisals of them over the next few days.
The parcel had attracted the attention of UK Border Force, and had been opened and re-sealed with its tape. That's the first time I've had that happen to imported goods: presumably the source country was the red-flag that caused it.
Seeing the tape I feared the worse, that they had roughly opened the boxes to find out what was inside and ruined them in doing so. Thankfully they had only opened one, this blue one, and had carefully cut the seals to avoid damage. That would have been extremely annoying had I wanted to keep them MISB but luckily that's not the case.
Like last year's, they are packaged in sturdy boxes which are extremely well-designed and made.
However, there's a nice surprise in the lid of the box this time!
The model sits on a 8x8 plate which is mounted in a 10x10 frame, as was the case last year.
Rather than the LEGO logo on the front being a sticker this time, it's printed. It's very glossy and more akin to the plastic-coated Super Mario barcodes than it is to regular printed tiles.
There's a lot of detail and colour packed onto the base. In addition to the swing ride itself, there's a ticket office, entry and exit booths, bushes, trees and a lamppost.
Turning the key turns the ride, of course.
A dark blue nanofig walks along a path, and a white 'dog poo' is on top of a giant cone, presumably indicating that such delicacies are for sale at the adjacent ticket office.
These will set you back £20-30 / $30-40 or so each, so are not good value for money, but they are a must-have for the discerning collector and would make an excellent gift for the LEGO fan who has everything.
They are available from several sellers in Asia on BrickLink.
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15 comments on this article
Cute set. It looks as if it'll fit back inside the box fully assembled, unlike last year's?
@CDM, yes, you are right!
I didn't think to check but they do fit inside this year.
It looks like it's made to be displayed on top of the box in front of that paper background of a rollercoaster in the box lid.
I just received the set of four in the mail from a seller in Thailand as well. I'm delighted with my purchase. Agree that the price per piece is ridiculous, but I bought them for the overall effect, not for rebuilds.
@rick77:
Last year there was strong disagreement over whether the model was meant to be displayed by itself by setting it down inside the recessed area at the top, or if the lid was meant to be put back on the box with the model resting on top of the entire thing. It looks like this year the lid is designed to stay attached to the box, and the pop-up background looks like confirmation of the "in the box" theory.
Alternately, they are clearly designed to be connected together in a row with those Technic pins.
So, "for the LEGO fan who has everything," where are we supposed to store it all. I don't even have half of all that much, but I am stuffed out of room. I tried to convince my wife that we should buy an investment property where we could store some of it, but that effort failed miserably. She didn't fall for the idea that the real investment was in my happiness, as opposed to our bank account.
@Huw, if you don't mind me asking, how much was the shipping on top of the purchase?
The optimist in me hopes the Lego lego is a sticker affixed like the Mario sets you mention, and this is all a test by Lego to see if they can expand ‘sticker printing’ to their regular sets. PLEASE.
You know what next year’s fairground model is going to be right?
@chrisaw:
Why? It's probably more expensive than printing directly on the part. The only reason they did it was because print wouldn't hold up to having Mario slammed onto it repeatedly. I prefer a mix of direct print or clear stickers. If I only plan to use it on the part it was intended for, I prefer print. If I want the versatility of being able to put it on other parts, _clear_ stickers are the way to go. White stickers are garbage. The plastic ones still tend to crumble into dust, and paper ones are even less durable if you do a lot of public displays.
Box is awesome. I wish I could get my hands on one.
@Schmopiesdad said:
"So, "for the LEGO fan who has everything," where are we supposed to store it all. I don't even have half of all that much, but I am stuffed out of room. I tried to convince my wife that we should buy an investment property where we could store some of it, but that effort failed miserably. She didn't fall for the idea that the real investment was in my happiness, as opposed to our bank account.
@Huw, if you don't mind me asking, how much was the shipping on top of the purchase?"
US$21 to the UK.
It always fascinates me how much effort Lego puts into the packaging of rare collectables, when the boxes for the vast majority of retail sets still need to be destroyed to get into...
This set would please Huwbot! : )
@Johnny__Thunder97:
There's a simple reason for that. Packaging that's too easy to open is more likely to get pilfered than something that takes a little effort. That's why they stopped doing the little see-thru windows on set boxes and even on DVD/Blu-Ray exclusives. Kids could just punch the window in and grab the contents without having to even mess with the seals.
The flip side of this is that packaging that's too hard to open is both more dangerous to open (_lots_ of idiots have cut themselves trying to open theft-resistant plastic clamshell packaging), and it's not something a store is going to want to put back on the shelf if it's returned after being opened.
Best thing about this set indeed is the packaging. The set itself looks quite Meh to me.