Random part of the day: Angle Plate 1X2/1X4

Such a useful piece, S tier!

Really handy for things like car bumpers, and such...not my fave 'Angle Plate' though: 3956

This seemed like a real game changer when introduced. I think I first encountered it on 6693.

From back when not everything was built with brackets.

The difference between this and the one with rounded corners is why selling on Bricklink is not for everyone. Such an easily overlooked difference!
And yet there's no distinction between hard and soft horn pieces.

I'm enough of a 90s kid that I think "front of a truck" when I see this part--but I actually got my first two of them as part of a raft: 6234.

Kind of strange to think how much OLDER this part is than most other bracket-plates--at least, I can say that as someone who generally doesn't care about the variants.

The great uncle of brackets: not quite the first but old enough to have seen many appear afterward.

I remember my first encounter with a version of this piece (in blue, in my case): 5938 Oasis Ambush, which I bought and built on the ferry back from France when I was seven. It wasn't used for anything build-critical, just to attach the printed warning tile to the front of the tomb - which you just KNOW the Adventurers were going to ignore regardless! - but it was for sure an interesting piece. I know I used it several times when building my own models as a kid, albeit usually only to attach decorative pieces sideways, same as in the set.

(Curiously, Brickset doesn't include the part in that set's inventory - even though it does include it for another Adventurers set from the same wave. Odd.)

This is also perhaps one of the very rare occurrences where I own at least one of each version of a part. I don't have many post-2010 sets, so often I haven't encountered the newer variants; but I have the most recent variant of the part from 40556, and the intermediate variant from 7965, in addition to a few of the original version ^^

@TeriXeri:
Normally, I’d care a lot more about the rounding of the corners, but I build 6-wide cars, and this is 4-wide. Rarely would I ever use it in a way that doesn’t leave the corners completely hidden, and if it’s not on a car, I might not care. The brackets I use most visibly are new enough that they first appeared with rounded corners. I care, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It was the 1x2-2x2 down bracket that was the real game changer, as far as the MOCs of my adulthood are concerned, since they halved the width, and have (mostly) flat sides.

@Binnekamp:
Hard and soft horn pieces?

@MeisterDad:
Considering the previous brackets were all one-off designs, and the first variant of this version defined the bracket style for decades to come, I’m not sure “great-uncle” is the the correct term here.

@ThatBionicleGuy:
5938 had the original sharp-cornered version of this set. Brickset inventories are pulled directly from the LEGO servers. If they delisted that variant and didn’t assign a replacement, it would just disappear from the Brickset inventory. It’s not the only part missing. Bricklink shows 63pcs, where Brickset only shows 45pcs. From a quick glance, the blue castle slopes, black treasure chest base (but not the lid), brown spear and palm tree trunk parts, green palm fronds and palm tree tops, tan panel, trap door, and printed tiles, and the dark-grey rifle are all missing from the Brickset inventory.

@PurpleDave said:
" @TeriXeri :
Normally, I’d care a lot more about the rounding of the corners, but I build 6-wide cars, and this is 4-wide. Rarely would I ever use it in a way that doesn’t leave the corners completely hidden, and if it’s not on a car, I might not care. The brackets I use most visibly are new enough that they first appeared with rounded corners. I care, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It was the 1x2-2x2 down bracket that was the real game changer, as far as the MOCs of my adulthood are concerned, since they halved the width, and have (mostly) flat sides.

@Binnekamp :
Hard and soft horn pieces?

@MeisterDad :
Considering the previous brackets were all one-off designs, and the first variant of this version defined the bracket style for decades to come, I’m not sure “great-uncle” is the the correct term here.

@ThatBionicleGuy :
5938 had the original sharp-cornered version of this set. Brickset inventories are pulled directly from the LEGO servers. If they delisted that variant and didn’t assign a replacement, it would just disappear from the Brickset inventory. It’s not the only part missing. Bricklink shows 63pcs, where Brickset only shows 45pcs. From a quick glance, the blue castle slopes, black treasure chest base (but not the lid), brown spear and palm tree trunk parts, green palm fronds and palm tree tops, tan panel, trap door, and printed tiles, and the dark-grey rifle are all missing from the Brickset inventory."

I think the horn piece is part design 88513. I'm not sure which sets the rubber one comes in, but I have got a few black ones and rubber ones.

@PeterT_AFOL:
A good rule of thumb is that, if there are only two versions, one replaced the other (this isn’t always true, with parts that have appeared in CMF sets). I never bought any of the Vikings sets, or the Dino Attack sets, and I had stopped buying Bionicle sets by 2005, so I don’t own any of these that I can trace back to the first year of production. Those only came in red or white, though. I do have original CMF Vikings on my fridge, and the gold horns on 8804-6 definitely feel more flexible than the white ones on 8831-13.

@PeterT_AFOL said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @TeriXeri :
Normally, I’d care a lot more about the rounding of the corners, but I build 6-wide cars, and this is 4-wide. Rarely would I ever use it in a way that doesn’t leave the corners completely hidden, and if it’s not on a car, I might not care. The brackets I use most visibly are new enough that they first appeared with rounded corners. I care, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It was the 1x2-2x2 down bracket that was the real game changer, as far as the MOCs of my adulthood are concerned, since they halved the width, and have (mostly) flat sides.

@Binnekamp :
Hard and soft horn pieces?

@MeisterDad :
Considering the previous brackets were all one-off designs, and the first variant of this version defined the bracket style for decades to come, I’m not sure “great-uncle” is the the correct term here.

@ThatBionicleGuy :
5938 had the original sharp-cornered version of this set. Brickset inventories are pulled directly from the LEGO servers. If they delisted that variant and didn’t assign a replacement, it would just disappear from the Brickset inventory. It’s not the only part missing. Bricklink shows 63pcs, where Brickset only shows 45pcs. From a quick glance, the blue castle slopes, black treasure chest base (but not the lid), brown spear and palm tree trunk parts, green palm fronds and palm tree tops, tan panel, trap door, and printed tiles, and the dark-grey rifle are all missing from the Brickset inventory."

I think the horn piece is part design 88513. I'm not sure which sets the rubber one comes in, but I have got a few black ones and rubber ones."

I meant part 88513. The switch came in either 2009 or 2010, as I own a few 2009 sets with the soft version, but those were bought sealed well into 2010 and the production might have switched at that point. I suspect the switch came in 2010 with the launch of the Atlantis theme that also introduced 87747. It's probably because the biting function on sets like 8058 would have been a bit too painful with the older rigid version. I can't confirm this however, as I didn't get any of the sets that include them directly in 2009 itself.

What I am sure of is that my 8894 Piraka Stronghold and 8112 Battle Arachnoid that I got in 2008 still included the hard plastic version. The former actually has it in red and pearl light gray.

The reason I say this is that it's super annoying to try to get period appropriate parts if you miss one. Especially now that I repurchased some old sets. The soft version just feels wrong on my 2005-2008 sets that would include them.

Hrmm...

I tried to load the page at 8pm Eastern, and was having some trouble. It appears to have been down just long enough to prevent RPotD from posting.

@PurpleDave Classic Space rocket bracket.

@huw what happened to RPOTD? Was it a non part?

@Huw said:
" @Miyakan said:
" @huw what happened to RPOTD? Was it a non part?"

Closks went forward. There wasn't a 1am :-)"

Fun fun.