Random set of the day: Dumbledore's Office
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 4729 Dumbledore's Office, released in 2002. It's one of 17 Harry Potter sets produced that year. It contains 446 pieces and 3 minifigs, and its retail price was US$50/£44.99.
It's owned by 3950 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!
85 likes
20 comments on this article
Mmmm, yellow licensed figs... I miss them so much.
A delightful place to invite Professor Snape to talk about student academic performance with no worries whatsoever!
Dumbledore’s Office: Dumbledore, Harry...and just make everything else up.
I want those nifty arrow pieces ;)
make more modular Hogwarts sets!
I feel like the new 2018 minifigure-scale Hogwarts castle sets failed to really elaborate on Dumbledore's office. Crazy to think we got 50 dollar set on it back in the day.
For being so old, this is a well-designed set. Aside from the minifigures I don't think it would look out of place amongst the current HP sets.
I give the set a B+ or A-. Would definitely have been on my list had I been purchasing more sets in 2002. The only HP set we bought that year was 4726, Quidditch Practice.
Nostalgic.
Wow! This was my first LEGO set!! I'd bought sets for my kids, but this I bought for myself back in the day. Then I added the Knight Bus, one of HP castles, and my collection started. Been hooked ever since.
Loved this set. Should have come with a Fawkes minifig. Hoping for a redesigned version.
@MandalorianCandidate :
A Fawkes...minifig? Now I want to see a version of Harry Potter where Fawkes is played by Piff the Magic Dragon, and he’s present in pretty much every scene. Anyways, they did do a new Fawkes for the HP2 CMF wave. Looks much better than the flaming chicken.
Woah, Gandalf's penthouse is pretty swanky.
Unique: 4
3960 4x4 dish with swirl magic print in transparent purple x1
6133 classic dragon wing in dark grey x2
6125 horse battle helmet with clip in dark grey x1
30169 scorpion in dark grey x1
Rare: 9
30181 4x10 brick with cut corners in light grey x1
3959 torch with handle and grooves in brown x2
2476 2x2 with bottom pin (old style) in dark grey x1
3031 4x4 plate in brown x1
30562 4x4 quarter cylinder panel in light grey x4
30562 4x4 quarter cylinder panel with stonework print in light grey x4
4215 1x4x3 panel with potion rack print in brown x1
6108 1x12x3 arch brick stepped in dark grey x1
4346 door for 2x2x2 box with combination lock and spider print in sand green x1
Maybe I missed the reason for this in the movies, but I never understood why the steps don't reach the office floor? This gap also makes the other side look unfinished (which is why it is so hard to find a photo). The dragon wings and horse battle helmet hanging on the outside wall are a nice touch as they do not appear in the photo, so you wouldn't notice if they were not included. The green wizards hat is also unique to this set according to the inventory?
@PurpleDave said:
" @MandalorianCandidate :
A Fawkes...minifig? Now I want to see a version of Harry Potter where Fawkes is played by Piff the Magic Dragon, and he’s present in pretty much every scene. Anyways, they did do a new Fawkes for the HP2 CMF wave. Looks much better than the flaming chicken."
For a Fawkes minifig just recolour the Roadrunner one into red!
@ambr said:
"Maybe I missed the reason for this in the movies, but I never understood why the steps don't reach the office floor? This gap also makes the other side look unfinished (which is why it is so hard to find a photo). The dragon wings and horse battle helmet hanging on the outside wall are a nice touch as they do not appear in the photo, so you wouldn't notice if they were not included. The green wizards hat is also unique to this set according to the inventory?"
I own this set. The set consists of two sections: the staircase section and the office tower section. That gap is a result from the method they used at the time to allow for modular section stacking: 1x2 slope bricks. In order to keep the starcase strongly attached this resulted in a gap.
The starcase section is cool btw. You can close the sides into a statue with the horse head as the bottom jaw and the scorpion as a lower jaw with wings and torches on the side.
This set is an amazing wizards tower and a must-add to a 2000s era hogwarts layout. The front actually looks relatively finished if you ignore the key sticking out. That is because it has a secret door with trans-purple bricks on the stairway level. The office has a revolving wall with a printed bookcase on one side and a key on the other. It also features a revolving... thing connected to the dish with gears, a secret hiding spot under the table, a swiveling chair, and three slots that fit tiles with clips. There's even spears decorating the back wall of the stairway level! And as always, you can fold the stairs into each other to create half a wall.
The design of this set was ahead of its time. The walls fold in for a more compact look or fold out to increase the size of the inside. And the bottom section is quite spacious! And as I mentioned before, the interior has a lot of fun wizard details. Not to mention that it includes professor McGonagall, who wouldn't appear again until the second iteration of the theme in 2010!
Personally would've prefered if licensed themes remained with yellow figs (nothing to do with race, but more universal LEGO-like compatibility).
I legitimately never realised how old those spiral staircase pieces were; I didn't encounter them until I got 75954 for Christmas in 2018, and assumed they were a new design. It's still weird to me, to recognise them in older sets now.
Of course, the fact that I had no interest in Harry Potter until I was an adult, and so didn't look closely at any of the classic sets that had those stairs in, may have also played a large part in my ignorance of those pieces...
Very nostalgic. Was always jealous that my cousin who owned this set and I did not. Design was very ahead of its time. A few bizarre things but it made it unique.
A lot of folks don't remember but this was back in a time where the HP brand was still unfolding and developing on a world wide scale. Given the time and circumstances, I think this was really well done.
@ambr said:
"The green wizards hat is also unique to this set according to the inventory?"
According to Rebrickable it has been in 5 sets, this one and 4 freestyle/classic parts packs.
4729
4274
4128
4055
1194
However, even if it were unique to the set, I would have excluded it from my list which doesn't account for minifigs.